You Are Dumb, which is not a blog, posts new columns when it can manage to in these troubled Trumpian times. It is also a Twitter feed, @youaredumb, with content in a similar vein but much shorter. For a take on what a blog by me would be like, check out OLDNERD.

Smacking Of Effort

This flaming paper shit-bag of a year has a few more surprises left in it, but if I'm gonna find the time or energy for anything, it's gonna be for IDIOTS who SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS!

"Way too often, people pull out their insurance card and they say 'I don't know the difference or cost between an X-ray or an MRI or CT Scan.' I might make a little different decision if I did know [what] some of those costs were and those costs came back to me." - Michigan Republican Bill Huizenga, perfectly encapsulating the Republican view on health care.

Of course patients don't know the difference between the three scans. Or what they cost. Because they're not supposed to make the decision based on how much it costs, they're supposed to make the decision on what the scans show and what their health need is. Or, more accurately, their DOCTOR IS. But no, Huizenga figures if poor people have to spend their own money on these fancy Devil machines that see inside the human body, they'll pick the cheap one! And die from whatever the expensive scan would have caught! Two birds, one stone!

But hey, lest you think Huizenga's vision of medically questionable cost-cutting doesn't apply to him, one time his child broke his arm and he just wrapped it up and let the kid suffer overnight instead of taking the kid to the ER because ERs are expensive! And if you're not willing to use your own child's pain to prove a deeply stupid political point about health care, well, what the fuck are you doing in Congress?

"I’m seriously looking at it. I love the people. I love the state. I know what has to be done." - Joe Piscopo, on running for governor of New Jersey.

OK. I say this with the full knowledge of a man who voted for Jesse Ventura that one time. WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK? Raise your hand if you even remember Joe Piscopo. Now only keep your hand up if you've thought about where Joe Piscopo was since he taught Data how to do stand-up. Now only keep your hand up if you knew he'd landed in conservative talk radio. Assuming all washed up celebrities land in conservative talk radio doesn't count. You had to know.

New Jersey, you can do better. I know you don't know you can do better, which is why your current governor has an approval rating so low it actually violates modern laws of political tribalism. But still, you can do better. You could even do better with a different Republican. Don't elect a guy whose career was a bigger punchline than he ever delivered, and whose career stopped being even a punchline over a decade ago.

This is just your regular reminder that we are about to be ruled by an idiot on an entirely different scale. Because before this tweet even went out, the grown-ass motherfucking adult professionals whose motherfucking job it is to understand and play the weird, formalized dance of feigned offense and gentle provocation that is international diplomacy had already worked shit out and gotten the drone back according to the way of these things.

Does Trump know this? Tough to tell. I mean, the information was probably in the daily intelligence briefings, but we know how he feels about those. And, of course, if he knew and didn't care, that's almost worse. And if he knows, and actually does care, and wants to subvert all that stuff in favor of a completely different diplomatic dance based on, essentially, professional wrestling promos, well, let's just hope the world is too busy looking at him like he just took a shit in the punch bowl to actually retaliate for dozens of punch bowls full of dozens of turds.